Chapter 26 - Eden
Eden
From where I’m huddled on a cold iron bench on the balcony, I can see everything.
Every single surface is bathed in a bruised, violet luminescence that makes my eyes ache.
The buildings ahead of me shouldn't even be able to stand—towering spires of obsidian and sleek, oily glass that reach up toward a sky with no stars.
Instead of constellations, there are only swirling nebulas of deep indigo trapped between rusted metal beams that span the horizon like a cage.
Down there, in the maze of back-alley houses that look like huddled, skeletal ribs, Vesper is with Litha.
I try to picture my cat curled up on some demonic rug, and the thought makes my throat tight with a weirdly specific grief.
I just have to hope Litha cares for her.
I have to believe Vesper is fine—being doted on by a demon, being hand-fed flank steak and getting petted with exactly the right amount of pressure behind the ears.
I can’t stop thinking about Piper either…
God, is she even okay back home? I can almost feel the phantom buzz of my phone in my pocket, even though there’s no signal here—I’ve checked, multiple times.
Is she still unconscious and alone in her car?
Maybe she got to my apartment and broke the door down, only to find the candles and blood littering the table and made some wild assumptions of her own.
Am I a missing person now? Is there a grainy photo of me on the news? Is Vesper’s picture plastered on telephone poles back in a world where the sky is actually blue?
The thought makes my stomach lurch. I want to puke. Again. I’ve already emptied my system at least four times in the few hours we’ve been here, and there’s nothing left but bitter bile and a hollow, shaking dread that makes my marrow feel like slush.
The glass door slides open behind me with a metallic screech.
“The temperature’s dropping, and your constitution is already pathetic,” Malachi murmurs. “Go inside, Eden.”
“I’m fine,” I say, not moving an inch, though my knuckles are white against the dark velvet of the skirt. “The air feels good.”
I’m not lying about that part—it isn’t stifling up here like it was down in those streets. It’s smoother up here, like a soft summer breeze, it just smells a little… funkier.
Obviously I’m omitting the fact that part of not wanting to go back in is because I can hear the wet thumping of demons fucking in the room next door, the sounds of their groans drifting out through the vents of this absolute shit-hole of a motel.
It’s one of the most disgusting places I’ve ever been in my life—a janky, roadside dive in the middle of Hell where the bed sags and the surfaces are stained with crusted pools of something.
But I’m too exhausted to dive into that with him right now. We’re here for one reason and one reason alone—and that reason isn’t to start a fight over our accommodation.
I look up at him over my shoulder. The light catches the metal studs in his ears and the silver hoop through his septum with every slight movement, a metallic glimmer against the velvet dark.
The silence between us is a lead weight pressing against my chest, filled with the hum of a world that feels like it’s going to swallow me whole. And one thought has been nagging at the forefront of my mind since I stepped into those streets—a cold little itch I can't scratch.
“Where are they?” I ask hesitantly. “The people. The… human souls?”
I expect him to lie, or to give me some cryptic, demonic riddle designed to make me feel even more like a glass figurine. But he doesn’t. He just leans against the railing, his silhouette cutting a hole in the skyline.
“There are designated hubs throughout the city,” he says simply. “Some of them are close to where we came through the Veil. And then, there are the Grey Archives. Out that way.”
He raises a hand, pointing a long, black-nailed finger toward the very edge of the world. In the impossible distance, far beyond the jagged obsidian spires, there’s a flicker. It isn't the neon purple of the city; it’s a low, angry burnt orange. A line of fire on the horizon.
I stare at that orange line, my heart hammering against my ribs, until he turns back to me, and his fingers slide into my hair. He cards them through the strands, his touch surprisingly slow, almost hypnotic, sending a shiver down my spine.
“You are scared,” he observes, massaging my scalp.
“Yeah, well,” I breathe. “Turns out being a mortal in Hell is a little bit scary.”
He reaches up with his other hand, his palm warm as he frames the side of my face. His thumb brushes over my cheekbone with a deliberate pressure that forces me to keep my chin up, pinning my gaze to his. Those golden, snake-like eyes are dark, focused, and terrifyingly possessive.
“I have told you,” he murmurs, bending down until his face is hovering inches from mine, “no harm will come to you while you are bound to me.”
He leans in closer, a soft breath of that cloyingly dark spice brushing across my lips.
“I can take it away if you’ll allow it,” he purrs.
“The fear. The grief. The noise of the horizon. I can make the world very small, little summoner. Just the size of this balcony. Just the size of my hands on you.”
“I'm filthy,” I whisper. “I'm covered in soot and Hell and...”
“Excuses, excuses,” he tuts softly. “You think I care about the dust of my own home?”
My fingers go numb as he moves behind me and begins to unlace the ridiculous Victorian corset I’m shoved into.
It’s a slow, agonizing process; he treats the laces like he’s disarming a bomb, his knuckles grazing the skin of my back with every deliberate tug of the cord.
The stiff fabric finally groans and relents, falling away in a heap of useless finery.
“Lift your hips,” he rasps against the back of my neck.
I obey like a sleepwalker, my movements fluid with a strange, narcotic heat. He slides the skirt down my legs, the velvet whispering against my skin until it pools at my feet.
I’m exposed. Bare-breasted and shivering in anticipation from the way his gaze devours me, his golden eyes tracking every shudder of my frame.
His fingers roam over the jagged scar on my stomach, tracing the raised, uneven tissue with a slow reverence that makes my skin crawl in the best possible way.
Then, his hands dip lower, sliding under the waistband of my underwear. His knuckles drag through the patch of hair, sending a jolt of electricity straight to my core. A desperate gasp escapes my throat as his fingers swipe over my pussy.
He pauses, his brow furrowing. “You aren't wet,” he murmurs. “Not enough. We have to fix that. I won't have you dry for what I’m going to do to you.”
He kneels down and drags me across the bench, laying me back across the cool iron, the metal biting into my spine as a contrast to the furnace-heat of his skin.
He pushes my knees back toward my shoulders, opening me up completely to the neon night and the violet skyline of a city that could eat me alive if it wanted to.
“Malachi—”
His hands pin against my ass cheeks, spreading my thighs as wide as they can go as he leans in, nipping at the sensitive, pale flesh of my inner thigh with his fangs, just deep enough to make me hiss.
Then he drops his head and feasts.
The first lick is a heavy, hot stroke that drags through my lips from bottom to top. He sucks my clit into his mouth, tongue swirling, sending sparks up my spine.
My hips buck up off the iron. “Oh, fuck,” I choke out.
It feels so fucking good it’s offensive. It’s a betrayal of my grief and a riot in my veins.
Before I can catch my breath, his fingers shove inside me—two at once, a blunt stretch that punches a ragged cry out of my throat.
He curls them upward, finding that one spot that makes my toes curl, and begins to fuck me open with his hand while his mouth continues its assault.
I claw around myself, searching for purchase, my body a frantic, grinding mess against his face.
He chuckles darkly against my skin, the vibration rattling through my pelvic bone, and he reaches up, grabbing my wrists and guiding my hands to the base of his horns.
“Take what you need, baby girl,” he rasps, his breath hot against my entrance. “Anchor yourself.”
Without hesitation, I wrap my fingers around the cool, ridged obsidian of his horns, using them for leverage as I grind my pussy down against his mouth. When I pull on them, needing him deeper, he lets out a low, guttural groan into me.
I’m a wreck of sweat and neon shadows, my body clenching around his fingers with a borderline violent hunger.
“Malachi, please,” I whimper. “I can't... I need...”
He ups his speed, fingers hooking and driving into me with a rhythmic, punishing force that matches the suction of his mouth. He catches my clit between his teeth with an electric pressure that makes my vision go white.
The pleasure detonates through the pit of my stomach and flows through my body like a flash flood. My internal walls clench around his fingers in a series of spasms, and I arch off the bench, my body giving way as a hot gush of slickness drenches his hand and mouth and the iron beneath me.
I’m shaking, my breath coming in pathetic sobs as the aftershocks rattle my bones. I can't even let go of his horns; my knuckles are white, locked onto the obsidian ridges like they’re the only things keeping me from floating off the balcony and into the fire.
He pulls back just enough to look up at me, his chin smeared with spit and slick.
His snake-like pupils have almost completely swallowed his golden irises, leaving nothing but two dark, predatory voids.
His tongue darts out to lick a stray drop of me from his bottom lip.
Then, he grins—a slow, wicked thing that promises this was just the overture.
“Better,” he rasps, prying my hands from his horns gently.
The metallic slide of his belt buckle and the hiss of leather are the only sounds in the air. I look down, and the breath I was trying to claw back into my lungs vanishes. A horizontal silver bar is pierced through the head of his cock, the ends capped with smooth, shimmering balls.
“Holy shit…” I choke out.
Before I can find my feet, he’s hauling me up and spinning me around, my stomach pressing into the freezing stone of the balcony railing until I’m tilted forward, staring down at the obsidian spires and the swirling mists a thousand feet below.
“Wait—Malachi, stop,” I gasp, my hands scrambling for purchase. “We can’t. I’m not—I don’t have... I'm not on the pill or anything, I—”
He pauses, chuckling against my back.
“You think your biology is compatible with mine?” His voice is a gravelly purr against my ear. “I am a creature of Hell, Eden. My seed wouldn't know what to do with a mortal womb any more than a tree would know how to grow in soup.”
He nudges my head down, forcing me to look at the horizon.
“Just look at Hell, Eden,” he rasps, his chest a wall of heat against my bare back. “Tell me if anything here looks like it follows the rules of your world.”
The cold bar through his cock catches against my pussy, a blunt, metallic intrusion that stretches me wide before he even starts to sink in.
And when I whine, he lunges forward, burying himself in one long, devastating thrust. The silver hooks deep inside me, dragging against my g-spot, turning my brain to static, buckling my knees.
“That's it, baby girl,” he rasps, his hands coming around to cup my breasts. “There you go.”
He’s driving me to the edge, his body a relentless engine behind me that doesn't know the meaning of mercy. The violet city below is a blur of light and shadow, dancing in time with the rhythmic, wet thud of his hips hitting my ass.
He moves one hand from my breast, the air hitting my damp skin for a split second before—crack.
He slaps my ass so hard it sends a fresh rush of adrenaline straight through my blood.
I cry out, my fingers clawing at the stone railing, my internal muscles clamping around that bar so hard I think I’ll snap it.
I’m right on the precipice, my heart hammering a desperate rhythm against the cold stone, and then I shatter.
A choked, desperate moan leaves my throat as the orgasm hits like an explosion.
My vision goes black at the edges as I gush over him, my body losing all control, squirting onto the balcony floor in a hot pulse that coats my legs.
I’m a wreck of nerves and friction, one hand scrambling back as I try to pull him even deeper into the center of the storm.
“Filthy little mortal,” he growls into my spine. “You were made to be ruined by me.”
He surges into me one last time, groaning, filling me, coming so hard his entire frame trembles against my back.
The cold air hits my sweat-slicked skin, and the silence that follows is deafening. Down below, the city’s still spinning its oily webs, completely indifferent to the fact that I just had my soul rattled out of my body by a demon with metal through his anatomy.
I wait for the shame to kick in. I wait for the part where I curl into a ball and weep for my lost sanity.
But it doesn’t come.
I’m still probably a missing person. I’m still in Hell.
My cat’s still being babysat by a demon.
But as Malachi pulls back, his fingers dragging across my hip, all I can think is that for the first time in far too long, I can actually feel my own heart beating—even if it is just to spite me—and the slush in my marrow is finally starting to melt.